Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1887-06-20
old wine as nucleus. t

cannot buy it for its weight in bullion, /
verify believe, an1 the only chance we
! dealers have is when some family dies out
and the estate has to be divided. Then
the wine usually has to be sold in order
to settle up the estate, but even then il is
rarely that we can get very much of il.
Either some of the heirs bid it in or some
private collector, glad of the opportunity
to increase his stock, runs up the price
beyond all competition on our part.
l remember one instance of nv
attempts to secure stock
OF this wine. young man of good fam
lily, but whose name | cannot reveal,
came to me some time ago and said that
| he had inherited some hne old wines
which he would like to sell. l knew him
| by reputation. He was married and
lived in Fifth avenue. He had recently
come into large fortune by the death of
his father, and was Joint heir with his
mother and sister. went up and looked
at the collection, or rather at his share of
it, and will never forget the appearance
of grief and Indignation with which the
two ladies mel his announcement OF his
intention to sell. They not only abso-
lutely refused to part with their portions,
but would not even listen to my sug-
gestion to have it examined for the pur-
pose of seeing whether it needed robot
Ting"
"Do you mean to say that you rebottle
old wine? thought it was considered
sacrilege to disturb it in any way, even
in pouring it into the glass before it is
disposed of.n
$50 it is" he replied, shut we don't
disturb it. We handle it as carefully as
young mother does her first born We
would not shake the contents of bottle
of good wine for anything you can name
But it is frequently necessary to look af-
ter wine that has been put away in the
American fashion and allowed to remain
undisturbed for q long time. If it is
not done, when the owners want to use
the wine they will find it
unfit to drink. Americans do
not lay away their wines as the
English and nearly all other nationalities
do. The latter place the bottles on their
sides. OF course, the longer thev remain
in that position the heavier the sediment
that forms on the side near the ground
That makes 1t necessary to handle it very
carefully, ana if it should be shaken The
sediment would become stirred in the
wine and spoil it. To avoid this danger |
some enterprisinS American suggested !
that the bottles be stood up, and that has !
ever since been the custom mere. But |
now an unforeseen danger has arisen. |
The average cork will last |
about twelve years. Then it begins to |
rot. Portions of the cork fall into the |
wine from the upright position of the |
bottle, and in a short time the wine is
spoiled. This has brought into being a
branch of our business which is peculiar.
When the corks in the bottles begin to
rot, new COrks must De put IN. This is a
delicate matter, because if any of the cork
falls in, then the whole of the wine has to
be filtered through paper of French manu-
facture, or, if any of the sediment at the
bottom is disturbed So that it gets into
The wine proper, the same process has to
be gone through. We frequently have to
rebottle wine that has lain very long. We
carefully draw off the top, leaving only
the sediment. This is generally put in
with some new wine and allowed to re-
main uItil ali its good proportions have
been absorbed. MANY old American fam
lies would rather ct the wine they have
received through inheritance rot than
either use or sell it. In many instances
hey will not even allow it to be attended
10. They look upon ii as sacred heir
Dom, and each bottle possesses, in their
eyes, the same inviolable nature with
which they would view the bones
II their ancestors. | think | can
Jay without eXaggeration that thou
sands of bottles of wine are
spelling between Wall street and Central
bark at the present moment because of
he prejudice of the owners against
|
'egsrd these inherited wines as q proof
If their good lineage, somewhat as a
european might look upon the family
Fifteenth century"
DELIGHTFUL TASK.
"Some time ago IreCeived letter from
hrs. Charles Carew, the wife of an old
ime shipping merchant. Her husband
vas well known here when l was clerk,
fifty years ago. He had travelled q great
zeal himself, and was acquainted with
very captain who came into his port.
This acquaintance enabled MIN to CRAFTY
is passion for collecting fine wines, and
more select lot Of wines than Mrs. (
;arew now has is not TO be found in
his country. Since her husbands death, {
ONE years ago, she has lived very {
u uOh 1OIl1CNA III w ODb -GlALu SllCClJ
nd her wines have hardly been touched t
Ter letter requested me to examine them, /
nd tell you what, just gloated over j
hat job. went down into the cellar I
With my assistants and let in what light,
could. Then l carefully picked up each
ottle and held it up to the light, and
easted my eyes on the soft shades OF l
uoy and yellow. Some of the corKs were &
ecsyed and the wine had to be rebottled. I
was an awful temptation to see that 7
eautiful LIQUID poured out like so much I
il. There were only about 1000 bottles C
/ her collection, but each bottle has 8 t
istory. Mrs. Carew knows them all, d
ut she is an old lady now, and l don't I
now whether she would say very much d
bout them. t
"James w. Hustled, speaker of the I
had the finest collection OF r
ines OF any man along the Hudson, and Ii
robably in the country. He does not u
rink much himself, but he entertains p
)yally ct his home in Peekskill. A. T. n
tewart wss one of his best customers. II
don't believe he ever drank drop, but "
2 bought large stock OF all kinds, and
ways tried to get the choicest. l don't t;
elieve he was himself Judge of wine, il
1t he was shrewd enough not to buy I
ON sny one he was not positive p
could trust. He served his p
,st wines freely to his friends at CT